


you every time

by discardable



Category: Persona 3, Persona 4, Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 04:08:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4333290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/discardable/pseuds/discardable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something strangely familiar about Rise Kujikawa, and Shinjiro can't work out what it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you every time

**Author's Note:**

> Vaguely in line with PQ canon, with some fudging and some plain forgetting, and including P3 spoilers around the events of the October full moon. Possible content warning for descriptions of physical illness, probably to a slightly more explicit level than P3.

Shinjiro exits the Group Date Cafe with a sigh, slinging his axe over his shoulder. This new labyrinth is really taking its toll on him; the enemies are a huge step up from anything they had to face in Wonderland, and the chatter of their group grates on him in a way it didn’t before. All he wants to do is visit Elizabeth in the infirmary, then eat, and afterwards maybe sneak a nap in an empty classroom.

What he gets is something much different. It takes all of about three seconds before Rise Kujikawa sprints towards him, ingloriously depositing herself in his personal space. She glares up at him, and he knows he’s in for a scolding.

“Shinjiro-senpai,” she begins indignantly, “what were you doing back there? Your attacks kept missing!”

That much is true, even if it stings to admit that he’s a little out of it at the moment. It’s made worse by Iori badly muffling a snort in the background, and Takeba’s subsequent punch; he really doesn’t need his underclassmen to see him getting a dressing-down.

“Yeah,” he allows, “sorry.” Their leader – blue-black hair, the kind of pretty-boy aloof that he doesn’t entirely trust – had recommended him to the head of the Yasoinaba squad based on his sheer hitting power, but he hasn’t really done much to live up to that since. His attacks fly wide, or he dodges too slowly, or he forgets to use items in time, and it’s wearing at everyone’s patience. It doesn’t help that Satonaka’s been chafing on the sidelines, asking to be swapped in after each battle; he’s seen the girl kick, and he can’t blame her for wanting a slice of the action at his expense.

“That’s the best apology you can manage?” She draws herself up menacingly. “The whole party almost got wiped out because you lost focus against those Lustful Snakes!”

He opens his mouth, then immediately closes it again. Truth be told, it’s Kujikawa herself who’s putting him off his game, but there’s no way he can tell her as much. Everything about the girl – her demeanour, her voice, her personality – is naggingly familiar, as if he knows her from somewhere he can’t quite place. Sure, she’s an idol, but that can’t be it; he’s never been the type to pay attention to that kind of thing, even in better times. And it feels a great deal more personal than that, like she’s someone he’s met rather than only seen from a distance.

“Rise-chan,” Yamagishi chides softly. He didn’t even see her arrive, but she must’ve trailed the other navigator from the Velvet Room. “Please, don’t be so harsh on him. It’s been a long day for everyone.”

He tugs his beanie down over his eyes. While he appreciates her sentiment in sticking up for him, it just leaves him feeling terrible in practice. ‘I’ll do better,” he excuses himself, and ignores her irritation as he turns tail and goes.

He does his chores wordlessly: healing from Elizabeth in the infirmary, some new armour from Margaret in the workshop, and Marie walking him through fusing a better sub-Persona. Then he corners Akihiko in the food court, determined to get to the bottom of this.

“Shinji,” the boxer says, looking a little surprised to be sought out even as he drops himself unceremoniously into a seat. He can’t be blamed for it, either; the unspoken terms of their relationship don’t usually allow for straightforwardness. “What’s up?”

“Aki,” he asks, cutting to the chase, “does something about Kujikawa seem familiar to you?”

“I was wondering the same thing,” he admits, and lowers his voice. “Doesn’t she remind you of… well, of Miki?”

Personally he thinks that any girl with kind eyes would make Akihiko remember the sister he lost, but now isn’t the time to say so. “That’s not it,” he says. “There’s someone else.”

He frowns. “Are you sure? I mean, maybe, but…”

“Never mind,” he says, and leaves.

*

Their leader at least has the good grace to look mildly apologetic, even as he tells Shinji he’s benched until further notice in favour of Satonaka. That’s one of the things he appreciates about Team Yasogami’s commander, the way he’s more human but at least as weird as his SEES counterpart. It takes the edge off, at least, though he’s left with a lot to think about. Like if he’s gotten rusty, or what’s awaiting them at the bottom of the next labyrinth, or the subtle wrongness he can’t seem to stop prodding at, like the gap where a tooth used to be.

He’s pondering that absence as he rounds the corner of one of the second-floor corridors, only to be brought up short. Team Gekkou’s leader stands in front of the stairs, listening calmly as Kujikawa talks at him about one banality or another, even as he acknowledges the new arrival. Something about seeing them together makes his head pound; for a long moment his eyes deceive him, and there’s a SEES armband superimposed onto the idol’s Yasogami uniform. Then he blinks and shakes his head, and the image fades. It’s not the first time his vision has played tricks on him, and it certainly won’t be the last.

His leader’s gaze locks onto him over the girl’s shoulder, betraying not a flicker of interest at his approach. In turn, this makes her realise something’s changed, and she turns a little to face him. Centring himself, Shinjiro prepares to hold a conversation in the face of a blinding headache and a sudden desire to bolt.

“Hello,” the other boy offers noncommittally, never much of a talker.

“Arisato,” he says, and frowns. “Kujikawa.”

“Hey,” the girl says brightly. “Minato-senpai and I were just discussing the Shadows of your world. Is it true you had to fight one in a love hotel?”

 _Minato-senpai._ It sounds strange to his ears, but he chalks that up to the fact that SEES has no first-years of its own.

“Two, actually,” he says gruffly, even as dizziness washes over him. “Or so I hear.”

“Oh.” Her thoughtful pout is at once endearing and staggeringly familiar, despite the fact it should be neither of those things. “Weren’t you part of SEES back then? With the way Mitsuru-senpai and Akihiko-senpai talk, I figured you’d joined pretty early on.”

He risks a glance at the leader but, damn him, there’s no help at all coming from that quarter. His answering gaze remains unreadable, with no hint of either warmth or friendliness there. Now that he considers it, it’s strange how this enigmatic boy has managed to unite them when he’s seemingly as powerful as he is unconcerned. But thinking about him is kind of like staring into the sun: it makes his brain hurt, and Arisato sure as hell isn’t going to blink first.

“There were complications,” says Shinjiro, and tugs his beanie over his eyes. His head is swimming with the beginnings of an episode, which means it’s about time to sound the retreat. They’ve been creeping up on him more and more lately, at apparently random intervals, his body rejecting itself one last time. Still, there’s a certainty which settles over him like cool water: this one didn’t come out of nowhere. There’s something he’s forgetting, and he doesn’t for the life of him know what it is, and the further it slips away the worse he gets.

Kujikawa says something, but he’s distracted by the fact that his hands are shaking. He stuffs them in the pockets of his coat, ignoring the way they tremble against his legs through the fabric.

“-okay, senpai?”

He looks up through his fringe like a cornered animal. The girl reaches a hand towards his forehead and he jerks back, déjà vu ringing through his skull like a bell.

“Fine,” he says, sounding as authoritative as he can and ignoring her wounded look. “I can take care of myself. Just need some water.”

“Don’t push yourself, senpai,” says Kujikawa. Beside her, there’s something in Arisato’s eyes which might almost be pity.

He heads off, moderating every aspect of his walk to pass for normal, and promptly locks himself in a cubicle in the bathroom. Then he coughs until his whole body is jarred by the force of it, pressed up against the thin plastic wall for support. Even after the attack subsides, though, and he’s gasping in air like a drowning man, the intimate twist of discomfort remains.

Only later, trailing the group in the Evil Spirit Club with Kujikawa’s voice loud in his ears, does Shinjiro manage to pin down why the nagging feeling seems so familiar. He stopped taking his suppressants when he rejoined SEES, but the wrongness he feels when he looks at them together feels like Castor used to.

*

They file out of the Inaba Pride Exhibit one by one, and he naturally lingers behind. He’s not in any particular hurry to get out of here, and he likes to leave the rushing around to others as a rule. The navigators are there to meet them, and the girls are quickly caught up in their ranks as the group streams towards the food court.

He chooses to loiter around, though, and so does someone else. Kujikawa watches them go, frowning a little, and then rounds on him with the slow inevitability of a thunderstorm. He braces for impact.

“I want to talk to you,” she says.

He averts his gaze. “You’re talking now, aren’t you?”

It’s a deflection, and a weak one, but she ignores it in favour of getting to the point. “You’re definitely acting weird around me, and I can’t be imagining that, because the others can see it too. So, Shinjiro-senpai, what gives?”

“I feel like we’ve met somewhere before,” he says, matching her directness. “Have we?”

Her eyebrows pull together, but she takes it in stride. “No,” she says, “we haven’t. I’m sure I’d remember running into a guy like you.”

She keeps talking, of course, but he doesn’t pay much attention after that. Her answer seems so impossible; how can he be nothing to her when she’s so achingly familiar to him? There’s something missing here, but her denial means he’s no closer to working out what it is.

“You’re staring,” says Kujikawa, breaking the silence he didn’t even realise was building. She doesn’t seem uncomfortable with it, but then again, she’s probably had to deal with much worse in her career as an idol. “Is something wrong?”

He steps forward, not quite knowing why, and there’s less than a foot between them. She’s looking up at him from under her too-dark fringe with too-dark eyes, lips barely parted –

Their mouths meet with the certainty of a hurricane. She yields under him with a quiet sound, and that’s all wrong too, the way she barely fights it. He slides his hand up her cheek and behind her head, instinctively trying to wind fingers into her hair, but he encounters only tightly-pulled twintails and the smooth sliver of her parting.

He pulls back after far too long, but he can’t meet her eyes. “Shinjiro-senpai,” she says, voice quiet and intensely sad, “I’m sorry.”

The world goes very, very blue.

*

“Welcome,” says the stranger, “to the Velvet Room.”

They’re somewhere half-familiar that he can’t entirely put his finger on, but there’s the sense of ascension low in his gut that tells him they’re in an elevator. It’s empty but for the man speaking to him, who must be its attendant: silver hair, golden eyes, and a uniform the same deep midnight as the décor.

“This place looks different,” he says, even as he recognises his surroundings. “What happened?”

“The Room is a liminal one,” answers the man sitting opposite, “which exists between dream and reality. Its manifestation in the false Yasogami High is at once the same and a different entity – but I digress. You must be Shinjiro Aragaki, correct?”

That gets his hackles up, and his response is cagey. “Yeah,” he says, “that’s me. What do you want?”

“My name is Theodore,” he says, “and I wish to bear witness to your destiny.” A deck appears in his hands without warning, and he begins to shuffle it with practiced motions. “I’m sorry to pry, but would you mind if I consulted the cards? This is a most unusual situation.”

He knows jack shit about fortune-telling, and he can’t shake the feeling that he has something more important to do, but something else compels him to stay. “Fine.”

“Excellent.” He sets the deck down against the blue felt of the table. “A simple three-card spread should do. Shall we begin, then?”

The silence stretches between them until Theodore takes it as the answer it is. “The first card,” he says after a while, and draws, “symbolises your past. The Hierophant.”

He squints down at it. If there’s any meaning to be gleaned from what looks like half a football, it eludes him completely.

“It represents order and tradition,” the Velvet Room’s attendant provides helpfully. “In other readings, power and maturity.” 

That still doesn’t really tell him much, but being rude to the man would be like shooting fish in a barrel. _Baby_ fish, even, judging by how bad he feels about the prospect. He nods, offering no other comment.

“We’ll move on, then. This one is indicative of your present,” he says, and flips another card over. His face twists unpleasantly at what he finds. “Ah,” he says ruefully, “the Tower. I’m sorry, but this is an ill omen no matter which way you look at it. A disaster lies just before you.”

He grunts in response, still not feeling much more enlightened. He’s on borrowed time, and he doesn’t need a prophecy to know it. Still, he feels obligated to see this out to the end; perhaps there’ll be a revelation yet. “Alright. What’s next?”

“In your future… lies the Fool.” There’s an eerie light in Theodore’s eyes now, one that makes him look at once more and less human. “Most interesting, to see you draw the Wild Card.”

“Huh,” Shinjiro says, stomach sinking. He’s heard that phrase before, even if he can’t quite work out why the association makes him sick to his core. “Zero.”

“In some decks, the Fool is numbered as twenty-two. Regardless, it stands for beginnings, and the spirit of endless possibility. It might even mitigate the Tower somewhat, suggesting a new start after the storm.”

He gazes at his life, condensed into three images and spread out before him. Order into calamity into a fresh start, which could mean just about anything. It’s underwhelming, though, and he feels almost nothing. After all, what good is hope to a dying man?

“Thank you for indulging me.” Theodore inclines his head and sweeps the cards from the table. They disappear as he touches them, returning to oblivion beneath pale fingers. “I have learned much from our encounter.”

“You seriously brought me here just for that?”

“No,” he says, “I have no power over this place, nor do I know what called you here. And even if I did, we of the Velvet Room are not permitted to dictate our guests’ paths.” He looks away, and in that moment he seems older and immeasurably sad. “All I can tell you is that nothing meaningless happens here. You were brought to this room, and to the labyrinths of the false Yasogami High, for some higher purpose.”

“Will I remember this?” he asks with sudden clarity. “They told us we’d probably forget everything that happened in that other world, and that’s fine, but…”

“I suspect you won’t recall the precise details of this encounter,” Theodore answers, and his edges begin to blur even as he speaks. “But who knows? Sometimes the things we need end up finding us regardless.”

Then there is nothing but white, and he finds it infinitely more terrifying.

*

“Shinjiro-senpai?”

The voice filters in slowly, muffled by the beginnings of wakefulness. He groans and tucks his chin into his chest, resisting it as best he can; he is so, so tired, and he will not be moved. His defence holds up well until something snatches his pillow and forces a curse out of him, and he jerks head-first into coherence. He gives in and opens his eyes balefully, taking in his surroundings.

Minako perches on a chair beside his bed, the presumable source of his rude wakeup. She looks as unperturbed as ever, a faint smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. A strange feeling rushes him as he looks at her, more intense than anything he’s felt in years.

 _I need you_ , he doesn’t say, and the words are true even if he’s never thought them before. “What happened?” he manages instead.

“There was a typhoon,” she informs him. “You stayed out too late and got feverish, and you’ve been confined to bed since.”

“What day is it?” He tries to turn onto his side, but a cough rattles through him and thwarts his efforts. In all fairness, that one was an effect of his terminal illness rather than his three-day fever, but she tenses up regardless. With a pang, it occurs to him that she wouldn’t know the difference.

“Monday,” she says casually, “the twenty-first. How are you feeling?”

The morning light plays softly on her hair and illuminates her ruby eyes. Even at rest, there’s something untameable about her, a deep sense that she’ll never be able to stop fighting. Something huge and alien swells in his throat, and he can’t bring himself to look away. _In a thousand worlds_ , he thinks with sudden clarity, _it wasn’t you_.

In this one, it always is.

“Better,” he says, forcing himself to sit up. “Come on, I’ll make breakfast.”


End file.
